Lime-cement columns have been used in Sweden to improve poor soil conditions since the 1970’s. The method is inexpensive and flexible, but is difficult to test since the columns are manufactured in-situ. Many test-methods have been developed for testing the column strength during the years. Most of them need to be evaluated using an empirical correction-factor known as the cone factor. The column penetration test, KPS, is the most commonly used method in Sweden, it is considered to be reliable since a large part of the column cross-section is tested. The problem is that the probe easily deviates out of the column to the softer surrounding soil. Today a pre-drilled guiding-hole, a soil-rock sounding, helps the probe to stay vertical. Although the soil-rock sounding is commonly not used for evaluation of column strength, the penetration resistance is recorded. A visual comparison between the plotted penetration resistances from the two methods shows similarities in both hard and soft areas of the columns. The relation can be measured using statistics, such as the correlation coefficient. A strong correlation was also found, suggesting that a similar equation used to evaluate the undrained shear strength from the column penetration tests can be applied with the data from the soilrock soundings. The statically pushed column penetration test probe and the rotated soil-rock sounding bit bore are likely to cause different failure modes in the column. This means that different empirical cone factors are needed when the undrained shear strength is evaluated. By evaluating the ratio between the cone factors of the column penetration test and the data from the soil-rock soundings from three sites, E-road E18 north of Stockholm, E-road E45 outside Gothenburg and at a construction site at Lidingö, the following aspects of the ratio was investigated: if the ratio was site-specific; the sensitivity to the binder content; the sleeve friction and; the sensitivity to rotational speed and rate of penetration. Average columns formed from the penetration resistance at depth from each site were used during the evaluations. The Swedish geotechnical society has standardised two methodologies that can be used for pre-drilling. The soil-rock sounding methodology which has no fixed rate of penetration or rotational speed, and the total sounding methodology, based on the Norwegian total sounding methodology which has fixed rate of penetration and rotational speed. The latter is to prefer when comparing results between sites. To remove the sleeve friction, the data from the soil-rock soundings needed to be de-trended. The amount of de-trending needed to find a constant cone factor varied at the sites between 0.5 kN/m and 1.0 kN/m. This however caused high interference, partly from scaling the variation. The cone factor for the total sounding methodology was found to be between 0.30- 0.45 times the cone factor for the column penetration test.

Soil-Rock sounding (jb-sounding) is a common method in Sweden, used to determine soil layering. An extension of this method, referred to as Acoustic Soil-Rock sounding, is currently under developement at KTH in Stockholm. This method uses the ground vibrations induced by drilling during jb-sounding. The aim is to investigate if additional information on the soil can be obtained by analysis of the vibrations, e.g. thin layers that cannot be registered by conventional jb-sounding.In this Master’s thesis, a further study of the method Acoustic Soil-Rock sounding has been undertaken to see whether the method is applicable or not. Furthemore, it is investigated whether it is possible to perform the vibration measurements on asphalt covered ground and obtain reliable results, alternatively whether it is possible to detect some systematic difference. This has been conducted as a field observation where the data has been collected during jb-sounding. The data, i.e. the vibration signal, was registered using geophones, one placed on asphalt and one on soil. Measurements from nine boreholes were performed in total; however, only eight of these have been analysed due to failing to register the depth signal properly in one case. The vibration signals have been processed using MATLAB to obtain the frequency spectra and spectrograms, to which the results of the jb-sounding and previous acoustic measurements have been compared.After analysis and comparison of the results, the conclusion was that Acoustic jb-sounding is an applicable method that ought to be developed further and the results from the measurements performed on asphalt were reliable. That is to say, no discernible difference could be deduced between measurements conducted on asphalt and soil. / Jord-bergsondering (jb-sondering) är en i Sverige vanlig metod för att undersöka jordens uppbyggnad. En påbyggnad av denna metod, kallad akustisk jb-sondering, håller för tillfället på att studeras vid KTH i Stockholm. Denna metod går ut på att mäta de vibrationer som uppstår vid markytan till följd av borrning, i samband med jb-sondering. Syftet är att undersöka huruvida kompletterande information från jordlager kan erhållas genom analys av vibrationerna, såsom tunnare lager som annars inte kan registreras av den konventionella jb-sonderingen.I det här masterarbetet har ytterligare undersökning om metoden akustisk jb-sondering genomförts för att först se huruvida metoden är applicerbar eller inte. Vidare studeras om det är möjligt att utföra mätningar även på asfalt och då erhålla tillförlitliga resultat, alternativt om det är möjligt att utläsa någon systematisk skillnad. Detta har genomförts som en fältstudie där data har samlats in i samband med jb-sonderingar. Vibrationssignalerna registrerades med geofoner placerade på jord samt asfalt. Totalt genomfördes mätningar vid 9 stycken borrhål, men endast 8 av dessa har analyserats då djupsignalen från ett borrhål inte registrerades. Vibrationssignalerna har sedan bearbetats i MATLAB för att ta fram frekvensspektrum och spektrogram som sedan har jämförts med resultat från jb-sonderingar samt tidigare studier.Efter analys och jämförelse av resultaten drogs slutsatsen att akustisk jb-sondering är en applicerbar metod som bör utvecklas vidare och att resultaten från mätningar utförda på asfalt var tillförlitliga. Det vill säga ingen större skillnad mellan mätningarna på jord respektive asfalt kan ses.